Dr. Jan Miletin:

It is much more difficult to deal with alcohol abuse. Mothers involved in opiate abuse are encouraged to be in methadone programmes and, therefore, engage with the services. Alcohol is different because there is no programme for somebody drinking alcohol.

Another problem is that the baby, after delivery, might look completely normal, meaning there are no immediate signs that the baby is affected by alcohol. Later, however, there might be problems at school age with learning difficulties. A child could have a foetal alcohol spectrum disorder rather than a syndrome. To have a baby with a syndrome, the mother would have had to have drunk a lot. This might affect one baby a year. However, there might be many more babies whose problems might express themselves later in life. That is why the study to check babies after delivery, checking their poo for alcohol metabolisers is important.